BioCentury
ARTICLE | Targets & Mechanisms

The XII factor

February 27, 2014 8:00 AM UTC

Factor XII sits atop one branch of the clotting cascade but has not been pursued for treating and preventing thrombosis because it was seen as a minor player in blood coagulation. Now, a group from the Karolinska Institute and CSL Ltd. has shown that inhibiting the factor can prevent clotting without increasing the risk of bleeding,1 making it one of the only anticoagulants able to accomplish such a feat.

A group from Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc. and McMaster University obtained similar results with factor XII,2 but the biotech maintains that blocking a downstream target, factor XI, is a better approach...